Coito ergo sum wrote:rEvolutionist wrote:
If that is the case (can you provide a link?), then I guess i will concede on the issue of the police. But what of the other services which government provides as a monopoly?
In the US, it's article II of the constitution which creates the office of the Presidency. The President is the Chief Executive - top federal cop, so to speak. Australia has a similar system, although Parliamentary, and Chapter II of the Australian constitution sets up the executive department.
Police is not necessarily a monopoly anyway - in the US, there is the potential for citizens arrests, and citizens may hire private security people and if someone tries to assault or rob you your private security officer can arrest that person (subject to penalties for false arrests, obviously).
Regarding the other services - you'll have to be more specific.
Neither the police nor the military are "monopolies."
First of all, the police were always intended to be a LOCAL function, and their power and authority, like every other authority exercised by any government agent, derives from the authority of the people themselves, who are the sole ultimate authority over everything our government, at any level, does. The power of the police is a co-equal grant of authority to the government which citizens do NOT forfeit or abdicate in so doing. Citizens have an equal right, in most places, to act as "the police" in the absence of sworn officers. Some jurisdictions limit citizen's arrest to felonies, but many, like Colorado, authorize citizens to arrest a person for "any crime" committed in their presence. The only real difference between a citizen and the police is that the police are authorized to arrest based only on probable cause (they don't have to witness the crime) and they may obtain search warrants from a judge and execute them. And "private police" in the form of security personnel exist all over the place, and they have the same rights as anyone else to arrest a person on the property the are acting as agents for as the owner.
The military is a multi-tiered organization that is set up at both the state and federal levels. States have state guards and the National Guard, and the federal government has the standing army. But all components of the military obtain their power and authority from the People, who have a duty to serve in the Militia. Congress has authority to raise armies and equip them because waging war on another country is something that must be done above the state level for reasons of international diplomacy. On the other hand, any state can raise the Militia and defend against invasion by another country (like Mexico) or insurrection from within, if it needs to, even if Congress has not acted.
The point that ReEvolutionist is trying to make, which has been lost some time ago, is a ridiculous one that attempts to label the United States as inherently socialistic simply because some government functions are centrally managed. His point, such as it is, is that because we pay taxes to fund government services, it's "socialist" and therefore I should not be arguing against socialism.
What ReEvolutionist commonly does is to deliberately ignore the substantial differences between collectivism and Libertarianism, or even collectivism and the Constitutional Republic that the United States actually is, in order to try to impeach Libertarian ideas. He creates straw man arguments by conflating police-power government actions with redistributive government actions, and he further conflates direct redistributionism (the transfer of money from one person to another by force) with indirect redistributionism (the payment of taxes as a share of the use and enjoyment of public amenities and services) and then he adds red herrings to the mix by falsely, deliberately and maliciously claiming that Libertarianism is something it's not.
I've provided long, detailed explanations of Libertarianism to him, and his main complaint is that Libertarians are "greedy" because they do not willingly agree to allow the government to take whatever portion of the individual's labor or property the government thinks is necessary in order to support the needs of the dependent class. He ignores both charity and altruism, and he and 914 simply refuse to even consider the possibility that the needs of the indigent and worthy poor can be met through individual and community charity. They both believe that only the government is capable of supplying the needs of the dependent class, and that therefore government has the right to seize the money and property of "wealthy fuckers" (914's common usage) to satisfy the needs of the dependent class.
But neither of them has ever addressed the ethical and moral question at the core of their socialist ideals; Why should "wealthy fuckers" or anyone else be obliged to support the dependent class?
They simply take it as a given that the dependent class must be supported, and that "wealthy fuckers" are the ones to do it. They make no reasoned ethical or moral argument in this regard, even when closely pressed. I've asked them probably hundreds of times, for example, why I should be required to pay for their health care. The only answer I've ever received is a fallacious appeal to pity and personal attacks, calling me (indirectly of course) a selfish bastard for refusing to agree that I must be responsible for everyone else's health.
The most common arguments presented by this particular group of people are all fallacies: Ad Hominem, Ad Hominem Tu Quoque, Appeal to Pity, Appeal to Common Practice, Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief, Straw man, Red Herring, Guilt by Association...I could practically copy the whole Nizkor list over and they've used pretty much all of the common informal fallacies in their so-called arguments, because they have no better arguments to make. They cannot, and will not defend the root principles of socialism or collectivism, ever.
Socialists give every appearance of being simply psychologically incapable of comprehending the basic fact of socialism, which is that all versions, all collectivism, utterly disregards the rights of the individual in favor of the needs of the collective, and that in the end, when the OPM runs out and the "wealthy fuckers" have been bled dry, collectivism begins to eat itself because it has bred into the proletariat the unreasonable and flatly delusional belief that "the government" can and will and must provide for the needs of the dependent class.
Dr. Lyle Rossiter, a credentialed forensic psychiatrist, wrote a very interesting book called "
The Liberal Mind - The Psychological Causes of Political Madness," which is also available in print at Amazon, in which he lays out the psychological basis for labeling liberalism as a delusional mental illness. I highly recommend you read it, it explains a lot about the dependent-class mind and the ideologies that appeal to it. It will give you a deeper look into the delusional state of mind of socialists, and it will explain to you why they are unable to either care for themselves or make rational arguments about their ideology.
By the way, I predict an Alinsky attack on Rossiter in three, two, one....
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
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